Racho Petrov Stoyanov () (3 March 1861 – 22 January 1942) was a leading Bulgarian general and politician.
Petrov was born in Shumen. A talented soldier, he was appointed Chief of General Staff at the age of 24 and was Minister of Defence at 27. Standart News - Archive | Wednesday, 3 May 2006 at www.standartnews.com His stature was increased by the leading role he took in suppressing an army mutiny in 1887.Plamen S. Tsvetkov, A History of the Balkans: A Regional Overview from a Bulgarian Perspective, EM Text, 1993, p. 79 He married Sultana Pantaleeva Minchovich in 1887, with whom he had 3 children. After an unhappy marriage, they divorced in 1919.
Both Petrov and his wife were personally close to Tsar Ferdinand I of BulgariaDuncan M. Perry, Stefan Stambolov and the Emergence of Modern Bulgaria, 1870-1895, Duke University Press, 1993, p. 151 and in 1891 he was promoted by Ferdinand to the rank of colonel, the first officer to hold that rank in Bulgaria.Perry, Stefan Stambolov, p. 183 Petrov also attended Ferdinand's wedding to Princess Marie Louise of Bourbon-Parma in Italy in 1893.Perry, Stefan Stambolov, p. 194 Ferdinand's decision in 1894 to place Petrov in charge of the army completely, and thus outside the command of Prime Minister Stefan Stambolov, precipitated the resignation of the latter.Perry, Stefan Stambolov, pp. 205-206
As a politician, he twice served as Prime Minister of Bulgaria, initially as the non-party head of an interim administration in 1901, the only task of which was to organize the next election.Ivan Ilčev, Valery Kolev, Veselin Yanchev, Bulgarian Parliament and Bulgarian Statehood: 125 Years National Assembly 1879-2005, St. Kliment Ohridski University Press, 2005, p. 71 He returned as prime minister for a longer period from 1903 to 1906, having been appointed for fear of war after a Bulgarian insurrection in Ottoman Macedonia.R. J. Crampton, A Concise History of Bulgaria, Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 127-128 His government was particularly concerned with military matters and oversaw an armament program and extensive modernization of the Bulgarian army.Tsvetkov, A History of the Balkans, p. 85
During the Second Balkan War Petrov, by then a Lieutenant General, took command of the 3rd Army, leading it at the Battle of Bregalnica, a Serbian victory.Richard C. Hall, The Balkan Wars 1912-1913: Prelude to the First World War, Routledge, 2002, pp. 110-112
During the First World War he served as head of the newly established Macedonian Military Inspection Oblast from December 1915 until October 1916.National-liberation movement of the Macedonian and Thracian Bulgarians 1878-1944. Macedonian Scientific Institute, Sofia, 1997, . pp. 361-362, 396
See also List of Bulgarian generals in the Kingdom of Bulgaria
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